Samsung Electronics Acquires HARMAN
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TheDeeGee
Nooooooooo!
R.I.P. AKG 🙁
Noisiv
Wow... I had no idea that Harman incorporates half of audio industry
TheDeeGee
I just hope the AKG Quincy Jones line remains.
I'm currently owning a AKG K601 and they are WAY too comfortable.
RooiKreef
Harman is some of the best in the audio industry, with Samsung being some of the worst.... Good luck to people buying the "Samsung Harman" products. The way I see it go dow is a product with all the technologies, but build cheap and slap the Harman tag on it.... It's nooooo more a premium audio product.
lucidus
I now have Samsung Soundsticks? :P I hope new ones don't blow up.
SirDremor
I would give this a chance.
There's no indication yet Harman will lose any bit of quality.
LimitbreakOr
Omg, my Mercedes suddenly has cheap Samsung speakers in it. Rest in peace Harmon kardon, I'll make sure to avoid your products from here on.
Stormyandcold
Well, at least speakers don't blow-up....oh what? They do? oh noo.
Evildead666
Samsung has pretty good sound quality on their Phones.
I don't expect Samsung to "Cheapen" the Brands, but to use them in their own products.
i would just hope that the companies in question wouldn't allow their name to be used with crap.
I would not like to see "Bang and Olufsen" stuck on a Phone and other crap, as "Beats" seems to be....
If it isn't up to the standards, don't let them use the name.
(Beats never had any standards, so no loss there...)
Mufflore
lol, they are home to much more than I knew about as well.
My first experience of good audio was B&O.
My Dad still has the speakers which I unfortunately damaged one of after I crashed a push bike as a kid. Man that hurt my ribs, corners of speakers arent comfy when you land on them at high speed!
Probably better explain, I was taking a speaker hooked up to a crappy radio (made it sound quite impressive) to a friend who was ill so he could have some 'sounds'.
It still worked so he was happy.
When my Dad asked what happened to his prize speakers I didnt dare speak.
Those speakers are what got me into audio.
alanm
Revel (speakers), Levinson, Lexicon (HT/DSP) are some heavyweight high-end brands. The rest more mainstream. Levinson now used in luxury car audio systems more often, but were noted in past for ultra high end DACs, AMPs, pre-AMPs, etc.
B&O not to be confused with B&W. B&O originally a Danish co whose products were more a lifestyle statement (with high end aspirations) but were never really given much regard by serious audiophiles.
JBL/Infinity mainstream, but the latter occasionally dipped into ultra-high end speakers in past.
Used to subscribe to Stereophile before internet age.
Reddoguk
JBL tweeters were the shiz back in 92 when i fitted them in my vw scirocco GTII doors. ^^
Clouseau
Only group concerned about is Mark Levinson. Time will tell, Harmon had the good sense to let them do what they do best and let them have at it. Samsung has generally demonstrated they do not comprehend that market segment.
Bansaku
They were the Beats of their day. Chances were good that you'd find a B&O system for sale at a garage sale back in the 80s and 90s. :megaman:
Dch48
So, now we'll have exploding cars? 🙂
I have a few Samsung products and they are very good.
xIcarus
You know, when you buy a company chain you usually buy all their assets.
That means that nothing changes production wise and I doubt Samsung will start putting their name on the products considering all of the afromentioned companies have each established a marketshare already.
The one thing that definitely changes is that they'll have higher levels of management.
Look at Audi for example. Nothing really changed when they were bought by VW, in fact they very much profited from it. Same goes for the pretty much the rest of VAG.
I'm a huge AKG fanboy, their earbuds strike the perfect note to me - but I'm not too worried.
ThE OnLy !peR
And suddenly, audiophiles from all over the world start throwing their Harman-Kardon hardware because, as sources claim, "it started sounding poor after reading the news"
RmVA
Of course they profited from it... but the consumer didn't. Audis didn't have much in common with VW before, but now they share most components between the brands.... i.e. same "cheap stuff" unless top of the line models.
However another VAG example is the Porsche. Hopefully Karmon products will be the "Porsche" of the Samsung group....
Voxvalve
Bang & Olufsen *AUTOMOTIVE*
The Bang & Olufsen is only the Automotive part, that is only car sound systems.
And it shouldn't change much since it will be all the same people making it. which is actually the same people as it was even before Harman licensed it. 😉
